Bitter Sweet
by Lady Misera
Summary: It's like a domino effect one fall leads to another. Strange habbits are aquired, fatal thoughts are created.Bitter sweet. It can happen to anyone. Lang


Lady Misera: Okay, I haven't written anything on this site for ages, so I hope this is still good. By the way, the chapter titles have nothing to do with the actual plot. And I aplogize, I have an extremely limited understanding of the military so...yeah...

(Language)

Disclaimer: I own none, I serve some.

Chapter 1: Grapefruit

Hot July. It was hot July and the heat took no prisoners The hot puddles outside evaporated into the air and crept into the windows in a heavy, condensed fashion. One could choke on the humidity. I tried my best to withstand the scorture, but my meager attempts did nothing. Cuffed sleeves...a lost layer...constant trips for iced water. I couldn't escape the simmering reality. You would think that I would be as used to the heat as I ws to my title, the Flame Alchemist, but truth be told, I despised summer's sticky days. The waether didn't give me a break and neither did my job...All those papers lye on my desk (which by now, I could no longer see) just waiting to be sorted, signed, or rejected. I'd love to just tortch them all. My intense focus was torn by an anoying telephone ring. I sighed and answered it. " Colonel speaking...". The voice on the other line had spoke of the devil as a knock made its way through the office doo. I covered the bottom of the phone with my hand and called "Come in..."

In came Edward Elric, the Full Metal Alchemist. As I returned my attention to the phone, my cryptic expression must've gotten to him as I said, "Oh yes, he is...oh really now...?...Thankyou...", and with that, I hung up."Welcome back Full Metal," my hands were folded classically. "That was Major Armstrong informing me of your arrival." He knew what was coming; I vertified his fear when I asked, "So, I trust you have your report ready to hand in...?" He remained silent. "Well...?"

"I don't have it...", he looked down to his balled fists. I was about to say something, but he continued. "Give me a week ...and I swear I'll have it."

I felt my face easing tention as if I had given up on the subject. "A week's an awfully long time for a report Full Metal, this isn't grade school you know..."

"I know...", he said before looking me in the eye, "but I need the time; I think I found something...something really important. Just give me the rime to look it over and I swear I'll have the report in..."

My fixed gaze showed no mercy. I was almost in awe at how far the small alchemist had come. No longer arguing, pouting, throwing tantrums...but standing up straight, looking me in the eye, and claiming a much tighter grip on responsibility. But not tight enough... "Adeadline's a deadline Full Metal..."

"I know but--"

"Look, every time you turn something in late, I have to pull strings to have it accepted, and that kind of thing makes me look bad. Grow up. I'm not going to keep suffering from your delays."

His face tightened, but his tone remained calm. "I know I'm not the best on assignments like these, but hear me out...Every time I go on a mission...I lose a piece of my brother...and as time goes by, so does Alphonse himself. I fight back tears and sleep to find a way to restore him...This is my fault...and don't you have to fix your faults before you can become a better person...?"

This was not the sane Edward Elric I knew before. But if he were as mature as he presented himself to be, then I couldn't baby this subject. "You make a good point, but this makes you no different from anyone else--"

"I know", a quick reply, " but I can only do but so much at a time."

"Yeah Full Metal, I would no nothing of that; it's so danm easy being colonel. I hadn't broken a sweat trying to get here."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?..." There was al heavy pause. "Do you think the whole world's going to baby you because you feel bad for something you did wrong? No one's going to slow down for your hardships, get that! We all have shit on our plate, but as mature adults, we roll with the punches and assume our responsibilitie**_s_**."

" Listen to _me_, Mustang", Ed gridded in a hushed furey. "When you fuck up, no one else pays for your mistakes...Yes, my fate has been cruel...I'll handle mine on my own...but every time _I_ fuck up, my brother suffers unreasonabley. I cost him his body...his feelings...aspects of his childhood he can never regain...I can't look him in the eye until I give that back to him..." , he began to tremble, but remained focused. "We're all we've got... if I live, _he_ lives...if he dies, _I_ die...but there's no way that I can go on eating and laughing while my brother sits their, rotting in his own patients..." Another hushed moment. "We dream the same nightmares...we breathe the same poison...and we bleed the same regrets...There's no way I'm letting an opportunity to save him slip out of my hands...and I'll put my own life behind that priority..." It was then when I saw that face. A face that I never wanted to see. An aching expression of absent tears, but burning ambition. He had had dried every tear that he was meant to cry years ago. "What kind of equivalent exhange is that...? One fault for two hells?...", his voice was now but a whisper.

I let the silence fall into place, the tension like holdiing foot on a decrepit wood bridge. There were no more words to be said, but still, I found some that needed to be heard. "I can't give you an extention, it's beyond me. If you can get it done by tonight--"

"I can't..."

I took a deep sigh as I dropped my face into my hands. "And why not..?"

"Just believe me...I can't..."

"You're gonna have to give me a straighter answer than that...", my patience was wearing thin. It was to no relief when deaffening silence presented itself as a response. Now I rose my head and looked dead at him. "Answer me Full Metal...what is it that's stopping you from doing theis meager report?"

The room was too still for a sttrand to fall, for a breeze to enter, for the moment to wilt. As if harnesting the sun's rays for the slightest of a voice, he said with a venom that was half repelled by the bath of light, "I've finally found out what I've been doing wrong... ", he looked both _at _me and _through_ me at the same time. "I've been putting _my_ life in _your_ hands...". It was with those words that he left the office and left behind a battlefield air.

Lady Misera: Hey, you made it through the whole thing! We'll, I'll never know how it was unless you R&R. Please and thankyou.


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